The Coda amounts to a second development, and the whole movement goes with a splendid swing from beginning to end.
Rhythm but of another kind is also paramount in the elegiac pageant-like movement designated Allegretto, but curiously enough marked by Beethoven himself at 76, by Maelzel's newly-invented metronome. It is a highly coloured pageant, seen through a veil of mist, typified by the wonderful six-four chord on the wood-wind with which it commences and concludes. The structure of the Scherzo (here marked Presto) has a strong relationship with its splendid fire and strong duple time effects to that in the 6th Symphony. The romance of the Trio with its wonderful low horn work is equally fine, and the movement is broadened out to considerable length by the return of the Trio and of the Presto, thus making it a kind of Rondo—A, B, A, B, A—to say nothing of the humorous juxta-position of the two near the end.
The Finale is also planned on the big scale, colossal in force and mighty in stride. There is a curious perversity of scale in the First Subject as though Beethoven was no longer satisfied with the ordinary major. The marvellous stride of the Bass at the end is not the least amazing of the features in this wonderful movement. Perhaps, this symphony holds together as one complete whole more than any other. It gives one the impression of having been written uninterruptedly from the first movement to last.
8th Symphony, in F major, Opus 93.
Allegro vivace e con brio—Allegretto—Presto—Allegro vivace.
"The little one," as Beethoven affectionately called this symphony, was written during four months of the summer and early autumn of 1812. It is smaller in scale, slighter in texture, than the other symphonies. Erroneously regarded as a return to an earlier style, and labouring for some time under the absurd title of "Ballet-Symphony," it has been somewhat neglected in the past. Without the grandeur of the Fifth or the romance of the Seventh, it contains a lasting, if less easy, charm, perfect finish, and a rich fund of good humour. Only a small orchestra is used, but it is handled in a masterly way, as the octave drums in the masterly finale, the charming staccato chords for wood-wind with boisterous interjections from the full orchestra, the running conversations between the violins and the basses, fully testify.
The first movement is in the usual development form.
